Have you ever asked yourself what it takes to become an expert in your chosen field? Is it raw talent, practice or just a sheer determination to be the best you can be?
Let's take these one at a time…
Raw talent? Well, some of the world's smartest people (IQ's in the 150 to 200 range) actually end up in low level jobs, frittering away their talent.
Sheer determination? You'll probably be pretty darn good - but without some level of base talent, you may never be great.
And then the combination - basic talent plus practice, practice, practice and sheer hard work.
Guess what - it's a combination of all of these, but the one thing that will make you stand head and shoulders above the competition is practice.
And not just a bit of practice either.
Believe it or not, to be truly world class takes about 10,000 hours of consistent practice - which on average equates to about 10 years working on your skills. And by constantly practicing and honing your skills, you develop an "intuition" - you "just know" when something's going to work or not.
And using (and trusting) your intuition could give you a massive edge on your competition.
Now you may not want to achieve this level of mastery - you may just want to be slightly ahead of the competition. And that's fine. Study your topic for just one hour a day consistently and you'll make yourself an authority in your field in a few short years.
You can however speed the process up by engaging a coach or consultant to guide you along.
After all, an outsider will see things differently to the way you see them, and can help you improve your performance.
We all know that coaching works, why is it that high performing sports people engage them?
We know that changing behavioural patterns can be challenging and in most cases very rewarding. If we have people around us the cheer us on and encourage us to just take the next step and the next one after that, we're more likely to follow through consistently.
And at the end of the day there are only two factors that make us truly grow!
1. the drive to achieve more
2. taking consistent action to achieving more
Rashid Kotwal is an international speaker and author who specializes in on-line and off-line strategies for direct response marketing and sales optimization. He works with sales organizations want to get more business, faster and with less wasted effort. You can find more information at
Sales & Marketing Consulting and
Get Clients Online Fast.
Copyright Rashid Kotwal.
